Wicked L.A. 6/28/07

Wicked

Saturday, June 28, 2007
8:00pm evening
Pantages Theatre
Los Angeles, CA

Elphaba	Eden Espinosa	Glinda	Emily Rozek (s/b)
Fiyero	Kristoffer Cusick	Madame Morrible	Carol Kane
The Wizard	John Rubinstein	Nessarose	Jenna Leigh Green
Boq	Adam Wylie	Dillamond	Timothy Britten Parker
Chistery	Peter John Chursin	Witch's Mother	Kristen F. Oei (swing)
Witch's Father/Ozian Official	Matthew Stocke	Midwife	Linda Kerns

Ensemble	Angela Ara Brown, Courtney Corey, Michael Drolet, Melissa Fahn, Amanda Flynn, D.J. Gregory, Zach Hensler, Adam Lambert, Alexander Selma, Terrance Spencer, Eric Stretch, Brooke Wendle

This was SUCH an improvement from the shows Saturday and Sunday. The energy from everyone was quite a bit higher, but Eden was on fire. Acting was much more natural (although there were still a few places that still felt a little off), and man, did she riff.

This time, Emily was guilty of cracking up -- and SHE had the giggles for a little while. It happened during "What is This Feeling", and she slightly stumbled on "unusually and exceeding peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe" and she got the giggles for almost all of WITF and some of the history class scene. For a short time, Eden was on the verge of losing it, too -- but mad props to her for maintaining her composure (though, you could tell she was fighting with all her might).
(I seriously saw Eden starting to crack, and thought to myself, "OH NO! Not a repeat of Sunday!" But Emily managed to hide it well enough that it wasn't truly out of character and you wouldn't necessarily know she had the giggles unless you've seen her sing this song before.)

Then a really funny moment -- not really a flub, but definitely a break from the rhythm of what normally happens. During "Popular", Emily was quite a bit more exuberant and was jumping around A LOT, especially at/around "your whole life is about to change, and all because of me!" She was jumping around so much that she was out of breath, and had to take more than just a few seconds to catch her breath and regroup, standing there with her hands on her hips, looking like she'd just sprinted. Eden cracked up, and tried to help Emily by giving her a hand gesture that told her to relax and breathe. It was awesome.

Eden's acting was MUCH better -- partly because she'd reverted to a lot of the acting choices she did when I saw her two months ago. Details below, but it made for a much more effective show.

HOWEVER, I still do not like some of her facial expressions and gestures because they look unnatural. And I realized she needs to find another gesture other than one that involves her index finger ( i.e. pointing, poking, etc.) -- there is an EXTREME number of gestures like that, and it's actually distracting and not at all realistic.

And her speaking voice is something else I'm going to nitpick -- yes, I get that she's trying to make herself sound younger, but the voice she's been using (since 2006 on Broadway) is not really one that sounds like it would belong to a real person. It's a character voice, but it's actually kind of annoying and honestly, Elphaba doesn't necessarily have to have a character voice. There are other ways to come across as young than contorting your voice like that.

Rozalyn is very aggressive when wiping Frex's kiss off her cheek, doing so with a look of disgust on her face.

There were A LOT of Eden fans in the audience -- TONS of cheering upon her entrance in "Dear Old Shiz".

Carol managed to choke a bit right before her lines that follow Elphaba's outburst of her powers. She had to clear her throat a few times during the remainder of the scene.

When Carol gestures in the air as she sings "magic grand vizier", Emily is standing behind her, staring blankly into the air where Carol had indicated.

When Emily says, "I didn't get my way! I need to lie down ..." she actually looks like she's about to faint.

Eden's TWAI was good, but I could tell she wasn't quite as warmed up as I think she could have been (that, and she's probably still a little under the weather). Still, she brought LOTS of power to the song. No riffs or even the lift in the last verse. But still, great song and the house erupted in cheers.

Emily had the slight line stumble at the beginning of WITF -- her tongue must have slipped and didn't pronounce the "s" in "unusually", which then cracked her up and ... on the verge of giggles throughout WITF.

Eden (like she did on Sunday) did the silly braid toss to mock Emily during WITF -- which I think I really like better than Eden pretending to poof her hair like she does with Megan.

Emily was so cute when she laughed at her own cleverness after the "artichoke is steamed" quip. She was so pleased with herself.

Unlike the other shows last weekend, Eden hardly once looked up at Emily during Dillamond's lecture -- she just kept furiously taking notes.

Again, Emily, Dioni and Natalie giggled during class, none of them even paying attention to what Dillamond was saying.

Emily again was very distraught about Dillamond "harping on the past" and both Dioni and Natalie tried to comfort her as she sat back down. (Eden this time exclaimed, "What?!" after it.)

During DTL, when Eden and Jenna are talking about the Ozdust Ball, Eden made a subtle but hilarious face when Jenna holds her hands out at "with this Munchkin boy".

After Kris and Emily go off stage during the Ozdust Ball, and Kris wipes his mouth with his handkerchief, and then bops Emily on the nose with the corner of his handkerchief. SO CUTE.

Also this time, Emily showed Kris her teeth and asked if she hand any lipstick on her teeth.

Kris' hands, again, were ALL over Emily while they were dancing off to the side, and they did a lot of whispering to each other.

Then as the tempo of the music picks up (after Boq asks Nessa to dance), Kris did this weird little hip shake dance for a few seconds, cracked Emily up, and then she turned around and had Kris wrap his arms around her. And as Adam is dancing with Jenna, at one point, Adam stops to glance at Emily, and Emily gives him a shy little wave and encouraged him to keep dancing with Jenna.

When Eden arrives at the top of the stairs, and sees/hears the Shiz students laughing at her, she crossed downstage and looked like she wanted to cry. Then she defiantly pulled the black hat onto her head, and looked deadset on dancing no matter what anybody said or did. And Eden looked like she REALLY got into the dance this time.

Emily is such a nurturing Galinda ... as Eden is finishing telling the story of Nessa and their mother in the sharing secrets scene, she comfortingly adjusts the strap on Eden's dress a bit and then fixed a few stray strands of Eden's hair.

During "Popular", Emily didn't get to finish unbraiding Eden's hair before she did her funny little kick thing at "you'll be good at sports". Eden finished unbraiding her own hair and then went to scratch her head in a bit of confusion.

So cute when Emily went to put lipstick on Eden's lips -- Eden reeled back a little, sitting ramrod-straight and leaning back in terror, and shook her head frantically. Emily responded by nodding her headed frantically.

Something that Eden often does -- both with Emily and Megan -- after the lipstick is applied, she sits on the edge of the bed and kind of kicks her legs up and down like Emily and Megan do -- just for a couple of seconds.

I mentioned Emily being out of breath after running and leaping around.

This time, Emily didn't climb on top of the bed to kneel behind Eden on the bed while Eden did the toss-toss convulsions. She stood on the floor beside her to slowly put her hands on Eden's head to make her stop convulsing.

The first time Emily does the ball gown attempt, Eden stands petrified and in complete terror of what Emily is about to do. Then the second time, Eden stands with her hands on her hips, not expecting anything to happen and just nodding in confirmation -- and it's like she doesn't even have to look down at her dress or at Emily to know nothing has happened.

After Kris tells Eden, "you don't have to do that, you know?" Eden looks somewhat touched that he said that, and as she pulls the flower out of her hair, she sits there kind of shyly grinning to herself. It was cute.

For some reason, there was no whistle that sounded when Carol entered (after Dillamond announces animals are no longer permitted to teach).

After Eden was forced to sit back down, after she tried to protest about the lion cub, she sat on the edge of the classroom bench and had a nervous twitch in her legs, hunched over slightly and with her hands tightly gripping the sides of the bench.

For some reason, Matthew Stocke (the new professor) was waving the tongs around much more than I remember him doing.

Thankfully, this time Eden didn't have that major attitude when she said, "Sorry!" (after Kris yells, "Do you ever let anyone else talk?") She said it like she used to a couple months ago, like she was a little embarrassed that she'd gone off that rant. (But she did do that really awkward "but can I just say one more thing?" where she holds up a finger and gets the silliest expression on her face. Cartoon-y is the best description of that moment.)

John did a double-take when he came out from behind the Wizard head and took a good look at the head.

John seemed a good deal more bubbly during "A Sentimental Man".

After the levitation spell, and John says, "This is only the beginning!", Eden looked down for a second and mouthed "Beginning?" as if she didn't understand what was going on.

John had a few minor line stumbles -- none of them really threw him off, and he just kept going. No one would have noticed unless they knew what the lines were supposed to be.

Act 2

Emily didn't take Kris' arms to wrap around her in "Thank Goodness" as she'd done in the other three shows we saw.

Emily's second half of "Thank Goodness" was downright heartbreaking. A lot of it comes across in her voice, but there's also her uncomfortable and nervous fidgeting of the microphone. And of course her facial expressions. So sad.

Jenna was almost taunting in the way she said, "You're not going to go SAVE SOME MONKEYS ..."

Eden was very fierce telling Jenna "I have done everything I could for you, and it hasn't been enough!" Not yelling (because that would be too much perhaps), but with a very distraught edge to her voice.

Before "Wonderful", Eden had a great facial expression of shock/confusion/disbelief after John says, "Only verbally".

I find it a little odd that John blows Eden a farewell-type of kiss after she thanks him for releasing the monkeys (right before she discovers Dillamond under the blanket).

After Kris says, "I'm going with her", Emily's "what???" was half-whispered and she sounded completely hurt rather than shocked.

After Eden says, "No, Glinda, it wasn't like that!" and Kris says, "Well, it was ...", Eden drew back a bit and looked at him like he was nuts.

In "I'm Not That Girl (reprise)", Emily doesn't take off the engagement ring. Instead, she just kind of fingers it, very sadly.

"As Long as You're Mine" was MUCH better than on Saturday (and let's not even talk about Sunday). There was a little more going on in facial expressions and Eden again grabbed Kris by the suspenders. They at least looked like they were a little more in love this time.

Eden finished ALAYM on the higher optional note (an octave above Kris') -- I don't think I've ever heard her do that, and I'm drawing a blank on which Elphabas typically sang that higher note ... But it was cool.

There seemed to be a great deal more urgency between Eden and Kris in their exchange after she sees the house flying through the sky.

Kris did the Tarzan yell.

Eden performed a very fierce "No Good Deed". Great riffs, though a couple were a bit much.

I love how infuriated Eden gets when screaming at Dorothy. "You want to see your Aunt Em?" (and I should point out how much I love her witch-voice "Aunt Ehhhhhmmmm") "And your Uncle What's-His-Face again? Then get those shoes OFF. YOUR. FEET!" ::slam::

Eden and Emily's "For Good" was one of the better, more emotional performances of this song I've seen in a while. Not quite as emotional as the 3/31 eve between Eden and Megan, but close.

Emily was literally in tears after "For Good" and in the melting scene.